A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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Conservationists and an advocacy group for Native Americans are
suing the U.S. to try to block a Nevada lithium mine they say
will drive an endangered desert wildflower to extinction,
disrupt groundwater flows and threaten cultural resources. The
Center for Biological Diversity promised the court battle a
week ago when the U.S. Interior Department approved Ioneer
Ltd.’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine at the only place
Tiehm’s buckwheat is known to exist in the world, near the
California line halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. It is the
latest in a series of legal fights over projects President Joe
Biden’s administration is pushing under his clean energy agenda
intended to cut reliance on fossil fuels, in part by increasing
the production of lithium to make electric vehicle batteries
and solar panels.
Chinook salmon are spawning in streams above four former dam
sites on the Klamath River in numbers that are astounding
biologists. Now, a network of tribes, agencies, university
researchers, and conservation groups is working together to
track the fish as they explore the newly opened habitat.
Reservoirs behind three of the Klamath River dams were drawn
down starting last January; by October 2, the barriers were
fully removed. Just days later, the first Chinook was
discovered in Jenny Creek in California’s Siskiyou County. On
October 16, biologists from Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife and the Klamath Tribes spotted the first Chinook in a
key tributary in Oregon, above all four of the former dams.
The Martinez Refining Company has agreed to pay $4.482 million
to settle allegations of federal Clean Water Act violations at
its refinery, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality
Control Board said Thursday. The refinery allegedly discharged
millions of gallons of wastewater from oil refinery processes,
which harmed water quality and threatened aquatic life in
marshes linked to the Carquinez Strait. … The water
board found three cases of unauthorized discharges into nearby
marshes.
Known by a deceivingly healthy-sounding name —nutria — its
eating and burrowing ways can literally destroy natural wetland
systems if left unchecked. So far more than 500 nutria have
been detected since last year in the Suisun Marsh in the far
western Delta. “We’re very concerned,” said Krysten Kellum, a
spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. “They are destroying our wetlands.” This foreign
creature has plenty of company in this 700,000-acre estuary.
More than 95 percent of the Delta’s fish and plants are
non-native. While the Delta may look outwardly bucolic, it is
one of the most altered places on earth. —Written by Tom Philp, editorial writer and columnist
with The Sacramento Bee
In much of the American West, water districts dominate water
governance. These districts serve vitally important functions
in regions challenged by aridity, growing populations, and
climate change. These districts also often operate within
boundaries developed a century ago, or more, and under
governing rules that are undemocratic by design. In many water
districts, people who do not own land cannot serve on the
governing board. Nor can they vote in water district
elections. … This article describes these problems.
Drawing on original data and mapping, it shows how pervasive
these undemocratic governance structures can be and how water
districts with these structures are expanding their reach into
new policy realms. It also explains continued problems with the
geography of water districts. And it shows how some water
districts have acted to thwart important state policy interests
and why such conflicts are likely to increase.
… Lake Oroville is at 764 feet elevation and storage is
approximately 1.73 million acre-feet (MAF), which is 50 percent
of its total capacity and 96 percent of the historical average.
Feather River flows are at 800 cubic feet per second (cfs)
through the City of Oroville with 950 cfs being released from
the Thermalito Afterbay River Outlet (Outlet) for a total
Feather River release of 1,750 cfs downstream. DWR continues to
assess Feather River releases daily.
After assuring residents here for months that their tap water
is safe to drink despite earlier tests showing high lead
levels, city officials announced Thursday that some of their
earlier assessments were done improperly. The news in Syracuse
— the latest U.S. city grappling with a crisis over
contaminated drinking water — comes after officials first
disclosed in August that samples collected in the spring found
that dozens of homes had dangerous levels of lead exposure. The
city said 10 percent of the homes it surveyed had levels more
than four times the Environmental Protection Agency threshold
that triggers government enforcement, or more than twice what
officials found during the Flint, Michigan, water crisis a
decade ago.
A new species of mussels discovered in California’s waterways
earlier this month could have massive ramifications for the
entire state if it’s not contained, the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife said Thursday. The California Department
of Water Resources discovered golden mussels, which are native
to China and Southeast Asia, while doing routine maintenance in
the Port of Stockton, marking the first-ever appearance of the
species in North America. The mussels likely reached California
by clinging to the bottom of an international vessel, Fish and
Wildlife officials said, announcing the
discovery. The department said the
species poses a significant, immediate threat to the ecological
health of all of California’s waters, not just the
Sacramento-Joaquin Delta where it was discovered.
Standing knee-deep in one of California’s famed Gold Rush
rivers, a scientist gingerly held up a cheesecloth sack
carrying 5,000 pink salmon eggs, each slightly smaller than a
marble, with a big eye incubating within. A series of
dams have long arrested the natural flow of water on the North
Yuba River in the Tahoe National Forest, blocking the salmon
from these spawning grounds for more than 80 years. State
officials are trying to bring the threatened spring-run chinook
salmon back, starting this week with 300,000 eggs planted in
the streambed. “Bye bye, little guys,” said Aimee Braddock, an
environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, as she poured the eggs into a wide tube leading
down to a hole she’d dug in the gravelly streambed.
The Shoshone Hydropower Plant in Glenwood Canyon was not
operating for nearly all of 2023 and more than half of 2024,
adding urgency to a campaign seeking to secure the plant’s
water rights for the Western Slope. According to records from
the Colorado Division of Water Resources, the Shoshone
Hydropower Plant was not operating from Feb. 28, 2023 until
Aug. 8, 2024. … The recent extended outages of the plant
increase the urgency of the effort by the Colorado River Water
Conservation District to acquire Shoshone’s water rights, which
are some of the oldest and most powerful non-consumptive rights
on the main stem of the Colorado River. If the plant were to
shut down permanently, it would threaten the Western Slope’s
water supply. The water rights could be at risk of being
abandoned or acquired by a Front Range entity.
The widespread use of certain chemical or synthetic fire
suppressants may be leading to heavy metal contamination in
wildfire-prone areas, a new study has found. … In an
investigation of a range of these products, published Wednesday
in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the
researchers found that several contained high levels of at
least one metal, including chromium and cadmium. “Wildfires are
associated with the release of toxic heavy metals to the
environment, but until now, it was assumed that these metals
came from natural sources like soil,” senior author Daniel
McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of Southern California, said in a
statement. “We now know that fire retardants may contribute to
these metal releases.”
Lois Henry, a journalist who launched SJV Water as a
nonprofit news site devoted to covering water in the San
Joaquin Valley, was named the 2024 recipient of the Water
Education Foundation’s
Rita Schmidt Sudman Award for Excellence in Water
Journalism. Henry said she was honored to receive
the award, which acknowledges outstanding work that
illuminates complicated water issues in California and the
West. “I’m grateful and humbled to receive this recognition,”
Henry said. “Water is such an arcane and politically rife
topic. We really strive to explain what’s happening in layman’s
terms and walk an unbiased line. So, it’s exciting to know our
work has hit the mark and provided value to our readers.”
Los Angeles County has filed suit against the world’s largest
beverage companies — Coca-Cola and Pepsi — claiming the soda
and drink makers lied to the public about the effectiveness of
plastic recycling, and as a result, left county residents and
ecosystems choking in discarded plastic. The suit is the latest
in a series of high-profile legal actions California officials
have taken against petrochemical corporations and plastic
manufacturers.
Mining lithium from the drying Salton Sea could bring jobs and
much-needed tax revenue to one of California’s poorest
counties, boosters say. But when Imperial County approved
permits for a company to do just that, officials failed to
thoroughly analyze impacts on nearby communities, two
environmental said in a petition filed in Imperial County in
March. At a hearing in the case on Thursday, Los Angeles lawyer
Jordan Sisson, who’s representing the environmental groups,
outlined their concerns over the project. Imperial County used
outdated data to determine how much Colorado River
water the project would need, Sisson said. He said
officials also failed to meaningfully consult locals about the
project — and in particular, to ask local Indigenous groups
about the impact it would have on sacred sites.
Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off federal
disaster aid for California’s wildfires if he returns to the
White House, most recently at a campaign rally in Coachella and
in remarks at his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes. Such a
loss in federal funds would be a devastating blow to a state
where wildfires have grown larger and more destructive in part
due to climate change. A single severe fire season can rack up
tens of billions of dollars in damage, firefighting costs and
economic losses. The prospect of losing disaster aid has state
officials and politicians mulling contingency plans ahead of
next week’s election. … Trump has said he’ll withhold
disaster funding if state officials don’t back his policies —
most recently threatening to do so if Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t
make more water available to farmers and
homeowners.
With its innovative Harvest Water program, the Sacramento Area
Sewer District supports Central Valley growers, thereby
supporting the nation. In the heart of California’s Central
Valley, a significant project is creating a blueprint for
sustainable water management and collaboration in agriculture.
The Sacramento Area Sewer District (SacSewer) is implementing
what may be California’s most ambitious agricultural water
recycling program to date: Harvest Water. Declining groundwater
levels have impacted water sustainability in the region. This
program will allow the use of recycled water instead of pumped
groundwater for irrigation, raise local groundwater levels by
up to 35 feet over 15 years, and increase groundwater storage
by approximately 370,000 acre-feet.
In the Western water world, measuring in gallons or cubic feet
isn’t quite enough. Unless Nevadans are attuned to the inner
workings of their state’s water issues, they may not have
grasped the concept.
Former President Donald Trump — and to some degree, Vice
President Kamala Harris — have been on the campaign trail
talking about federal land in Western states, including
Arizona. The vast open tracts are seen as prime real estate
that could help reduce a national housing shortage. But one
Republican candidate for state office has taken it a step
further, promoting policy positions on land and
water that would undercut tribal sovereignty.
… Vince Leach laid out his plan to address the affordable
housing problem in Arizona, some 24 hours after he acknowledged
Columbus Day. “We got to work with the feds to get our land
back. Give me my land,” Leach said during an event sponsored by
the Citizens for Picture Rocks in Pima County. “We’ve got to
open up more land.”
Three subcommittees exploring ways to protect the Crystal River
met in Marble on Monday to share their status and findings
after six months of work. The Crystal River Collaborative
Steering Committee split into three subcommittees in March,
each focused on evaluating a different method of river
protection: a peaking instream flow, an intergovernmental
agreement, and a federal Wild & Scenic designation. Some
Crystal Valley residents, along with Pitkin County, have pushed
for a Wild & Scenic designation for years as the best way to
prevent future dams and diversions. Others, wary of any federal
involvement, have balked at the idea, instead proposing
different types of protections. But nearly everyone involved
agrees that some type of protection is necessary to ensure that
one of Colorado’s last free-flowing rivers
stays that way.
Farmers can estimate the size of a harvest months in advance by
counting the blossoms on their trees. Similarly, salmon fishers
can cast an eye into the future by counting spawning fish in a
river. Fishery managers are doing that now in the Sacramento
River and its tributaries, and what they’re seeing could be a
bad sign for next year. … Overall, the unwelcome numbers,
mirroring similar figures from last year, are alarming to
people who fish, for they portend the possible continuation of
the two-year-and-counting statewide ban on salmon fishing,
imposed in 2023 following a weak spawning season.
